zhynn

Joined 15 years ago

Karma
445
Submissions
162
Member since
May 3
[ my public key: https://keybase.io/pol; my proof: https://keybase.io/pol/sigs/_wUJhffyeGk4dFeEWj5JPuBuZt0UDHwM-5t0Q5XehaA ]

Please contact me if you are curious about what it is like working remotely as a tech worker in rural VT! VT needs more people badly, but I think it is wildly overlooked.

Messaging via keybase is most reliable, but if you want to try an email, you can send to [email protected]

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Recent submissions

Comment · 1 month ago
Comment · 1 month ago
I did not know this! What a cool feature.
Comment · 1 month ago
I have been meaning to use Justine's RedBean to build a "project app" (kind of like what the OP describes, but leaning more towards something like Datasette). It would contain the data, the paper(s), and the UI for interacting with the data (and supporting scripts or R that can be run with other tools). I just like the idea of a portable single-file scientific artifact.

(also another call for jart to fix their certs!)

Comment · 1 month ago
I have a recurring donation, there is so much cool stuff in the archive. It really is the library of the internet, and I love it.
Comment · 2 months ago
Comment · 2 months ago
Comment · 2 months ago
I love Fossil, I have been using it for all of my projects for the last couple years. Things that I love include:

    1. batteries included single-file functionality (fossil binary + sqlite file and I have everything!)
    2. Hosting them is super easy, I have a lighttpd server configured to do cgi-bin, and i just pop the project.fossil file onto the server and I have a project.
The biggest friction is managing users across repos. Each repo is its own RBAC, the "zhynn" user in one repo is not the same as the "zhynn" user in another repo. It would be cool to be able to sync users across repos, which should be possible with sql, but I think that it could get weird with repo-specific permissions. Currently I just add my user to each new repo, granting that user setup permissions, and removing the admin before I scp the .fossil file up to the webserver.

In the end though, I intend to use it for all of my personal projects from here out.

I have a pipe dream of turning a fossil repo into a portable distributed more-async-friendly slack clone, where the "chat", "wiki" and "forum" functionalities are all used as the back-end for a responsive UI that basically does the same thing that slack does, but lives in a single sqlite file + binary. It could run mostly offline in a kind of scuttlebutt/limited connectivity pattern (when online push/pull messages, get latest chats/files/etc, go back offline. As you go through the content, make your responses locally, then go back online, push/pull again, repeat.)

I have another pipe dream of making a RedBean APE fossil UI. I think it would be cool to have a single file universal executable that is my project repo.

Comment · 6 months ago
I found out today that I am user 6082. I have been using github since the rubyconf (railsconf? I can't remember) where it was announced. I loved octocat. I was a git fanatic. It has been extremely disappointing.

I am using fossil now. I kind of love it, just a sqlite file with a very trim binary to interact with it. I get all of my things that I want (wiki, forum, issues, docs, etc) all in one file.

But that's just for fun. At work we are still tied to Microsoft Github. Just typing that out feels dirty.

Comment · 9 months ago
Mu is awesome, one of my favorites. I especially like the "Mu and More" and "Mu and Much More" decks that have other games you can play in the box. It is a bit fiddly customizing the decks for the different games, but it is amazing how much game is in that one box. Njet was mentioned in another comment, and that is one of my go-to games when playing with non-gamers.

Mu is my favorite trick taking game of all time, but it is difficult enough that I don't get a chance to play it very often.

Comment · 11 months ago
Comment · 1 year ago
Thanks for helping to run my favorite library on earth.
Comment · 1 year ago
It appears that Hamas struck a deeper blow on October 7th than we realized. Perhaps Israel's humanity was the primary target. It's like watching a family member destroy everything in a fit of grief and rage. Surely there is a wiser path.
Comment · 1 year ago
My very favorite map projection is the AuthaGraph map: http://www.authagraph.com

It is a novel (I would say amazing) map projection that manages to retain proportional landmass size by using an "ioso-area-mapping" technique. It maps the sphere to a tetrahedron and then slices and unfolds that tetrahedron into a 2d plane.

The method places all of the continents into the map (proportionally!), while also being able to tessellate (so you can move the "viewfinder" to focus on different map subsections without changing the overall map). It's easier to see than describe. The "4" link is an example of modifying the "view" of the tessellated surface to create maps that focus on particular regions.

The downside is that "north" and "south" are rather arbitrary points on the map, instead of being at the top/bottom.

It is still by far my favorite 2D map projection!

Comment · 1 year ago
This reminds me a little of [Scuttlebutt](https://scuttlebutt.nz) (positive it has been posted on HN before). But I think these little projects are awesome, even if they have a limited audience. Go forth!
Comment · 1 year ago
If you love hard-science dinosaur books, I cannot recommend Abby Howard's "Earth Before Us" series: https://www.goodreads.com/series/257878-earth-before-us

They are so so SO good, they have so much care about the science while also being delightfully whimsical and the art is beautiful. Please check them out!

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